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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowSamm Quinn’s excellent analysis of the Carmel primary election [Challenger sees Carmel’s debt debate as way to topple Brainard, Feb. 22] raises a serious question about the incumbent mayor’s integrity.
The mayor challenges the $1.3 billion debt reported by the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, saying the city actually owes $874 million. He does not cite his source for the $874 million figure and says it includes $15 million in bonds to be issued for a luxury hotel.
Oddly, the mayor’s own administration reports the DLGF numbers. Those numbers include $810 million for debt principal. They do not include interest which would, presumably, add to the debt not reduce it. And the city is seeking $18 million in bonds for the hotel, not $15 million.
Moreover, the mayor’s casual handling of other people’s money has been demonstrated in his flawed financial forecasting: published reports on costs of the Palladium began with his $17 million estimate and ended with a $175 million cost; a $10-$15 million estimate as Carmel’s share of the Keystone improvement project that cost locals $60 million, and—most recently—the $32 million estimate for the luxury hotel now estimated by his own staff at $41 million (and counting).
They mayor’s challenge is to get his facts straight—at least once.
Most tragic is, as Quinn points out, the mayor was re-elected in 2015 by a mere 15 percent of Carmel’s 63,335 registered voters.
Glynn’s challenge is not the incumbent mayor but the epidemic indifference of Carmel voters.
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William Shaffer
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